Hey guys and gals! As a designer, I love seeing the behind-the-scene processes of other designers. So, I thought I would give you a glimpse of what it’s like to work with me on a custom invitation.
First off, there’s sketches.
A ton of them. And, no- I don’t share most of them. Typically I will share 2-3 of the best sketches, but with this New Years Eve Invitation, my first sketch was a winner!
Small, Quick Sketches
These small sketches was to see what style I wanted the main lettering component to be.
Sketch I showed the client:
Then, I go to digitizing.
This project was particularly special to me because of my own challenges to digitize the lettering using a different method. Aside from live-tracing, which I use for most of my scripts, there’s also a method of drawing the shapes of the letters by using strokes and the pen tool in Illustrator. This method creates strong uniform letters as well as clear lines. It makes the lettering look more mechanical, as if it could be a font. I think this style was better suited for this invitation, because the examples the client showed me were of a elegant, sophisticated, and fun.
Here’s the outlined version showing different shapes and strokes to draw the words New Years Eve Soiree.
I decided to pair my lettering with a beautiful script font and a little bit curly san-serif, that worked great together with the style of lettering.
After that, finalizing the digital letters.
I outlined some strokes and combined, and cleaned up pen points to create the final lettering of “New Year’s Eve Soiree”
So, why do lettering if it’s just going to look like a font?
Well, do you see the flourishes on the N, Y, E, R, and how the A becomes the crossbar in the first E in Soiree? That’s what custom lettering gives you.
Lettering gives opportunities to make display text special and have an air of je ne sais quoi. Not a lot of people will recognize it, but it’s a feeling that lettering offers a person that’s made it become so popular again.
Need your invitations to have a little special something? Let’s see if we can work together to make awesome stuff.
